I’d read long ago that Allah was one god among many and is not the Arabic word for god. The name was familiar and was appropriated for that reason.
“I’d read long ago that Allah was one god among many and is not the Arabic word for god. The name was familiar and was appropriated for that reason.”
There is more history to support that being the case for “God” in English than of “Allah” in Arabic. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. Neither God nor Allah were used in it in its original languages.
This revisionist history also assumes that God was somehow unknown to Arabs. But a Biblical worldview of history shows nations and other people groups BEGIN with a knowledge of God and then move away into idolatry, not the reverse. In other words, this would mean Islam misappropriated God’s title, ascribing characteristics to Him that are theologically unsound.
Those who push the idea that Allah doesn’t refer to God because it was supposedly borrowed from some pagan deity, never seem to be able to come up with the “correct” word for God in Arabic. If it is not Allah, ask them what it is. Should we demand that those who speak Arabic learn some other language if they wish to refer to God by His correct title? Perhaps they would demand, like the Islamic terrorists who torture and murder Arabic Christians and Jews, that they too must renounce their faith in “Allah”?
Allah was the Arabic name for God before the English word “God” existed. It is God who divided the languages, starting at Babel, and He has reserved within every language at least one word that refers to Him, as our Creator and the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe.
The focus should be on knowing God rather than fixating on the distinctive qualities of various languages. God showed at Pentecost that He intends the Gospel to reach ALL languages. Jesus sent His disciples into the world to preach to ALL nationalities, languages, and ethnicities. He promised to save some from ALL of these various groups. He did not say that various language speakers needed to learn Hebrew or Greek to know Him. Otherwise, we would be just as lost as Arabic speakers, because English speakers learn of Christ and God in our own language.